Yaoundé, Sunday, October 11, 2009

Greetings, one and all!

Yes, it has been a long time! After my last posting, life was quite busy, work-wise, but also rather humdrum, so there didn’t seem to be any reason to post any news on the blog. I’m sure that a weekly litany of what I’d eaten or done work-wise would have been terribly dull! And the last posting was very long, so I thought that a break would certainly be welcome. Those are my excuses, anyway!

The last few months have been relatively calm (in the Macfarlane sense of the word, to be sure), life being fairly routine. I did manage a couple of trips within Cameroon, of which more anon, and was very happy to have four weeks’ holiday, from late July until August 20th. I shall spare you the details of the summer vacation as I’m sure that Marion will regale you with it all in the annual letter that may or may not be issued before January 2010. In summary, though, you need to know that Marion and I spent two weeks in Britain, followed by two weeks in Canada before my return to Yaoundé.

Here in Cameroon, I benefit from the local statutory holidays. I could have chosen to take the Canadian ones, but it seemed a bit strange to have days’ off while colleagues worked and vice-versa, and since the number of statutory holidays is the same, it was easier to take the Cameroonian ones. All this to explain that May 1 is International Workers’ Day (Labour Day, celebrated the world over except in North America) and that, this year, the holiday fell on a Friday, thus affording me a long weekend. Of course, there were numerous celebrations, parades etc. in which I could have participated, as well as a big meal at the Centre, but I had informed my colleagues that I wouldn’t be attending these, explaining that a day off for workers meant a day off for me (quite the revolutionary talk!). I decided that a long weekend was perfect for a quick trip somewhere, and chose to go to Dschang (pronounced Tchang), a University town nestled in the hills about 400 km away.

Not wishing to travel alone, I invited one of my colleagues, Serge, a metalwork teacher, aged 23, whom I mentor a lot with respect to pedagogy, to come along. Serge had once told me that he had a cousin studying in Dschang and had also mentioned in passing that he hadn’t travelled much in Cameroon. I was quite relieved that Serge accepted the invitation, since I thought he might feel obliged to participate in all festivities. Much as I enjoy travelling, it’s not a bad idea to be accompanied, just in case, especially by a person whose biceps are very impressive! I spent the best part of a week trying to reach the hotel that had been recommended and I managed, at last, to reserve a room two days before leaving. Le Centre climatique de Dschang (Dschang Spa) was established during the Second World War to cater to expatriates (colonial administrators and others) who couldn’t go home on leave (for obvious reasons) and was the only place that was recommended to me.

Serge and I had agreed to meet at the bus station at 6:30 on the Friday morning, May 1, to catch the first bus to Dschang, theoretically leaving at 7. Njikam, my taxi driver, bless his heart, got up extra early to take me to the station and decided to hang around until Serge arrived. At 6:40, I called Serge (usually punctual), to find that he was still trying to catch a taxi at his end of town. This being May Day, of course, there weren’t many around, since customers were few and far between. So Njikam hared off to get Serge, brought him to the station at about 7:15 and left for home. Serge and I bought our tickets, and as we were the first (!!!) passengers (out of 70), were able to book the seats right in front of the bus. The stationmaster assured us that we’d be leaving by 9 at the latest. Hem… The bus took a long time to fill up (remember that busses don’t leave until full, no matter what!), and it was 11:30 before it was full. Just as well I had a magazine to read as well as a couple of books. I knew that we’d have to wait, but not that long! Anyway, at 11:30, the doors of the bus closed, and we moved off – after a few tricky manoeuvres, the bus then parked on the street, right in front of the station, and the driver switched off the engine and got out. Then a wee man came around checking for tickets, and a number of passengers got off and went back to the ticket office. These were the passengers to whom change was owed, so we waited… and waited… and waited… Finally, at 12:45, we left! One does need patience….

The trip was long and not very comfortable, I have to say. We did have a good view, and it was a good day for travelling, no rain but cloud cover. The main road is in fairly good shape, and other than a couple of rest stops on the way (“Quite the bull, that guy, he never stops!”), a market stop and a couple of checkpoints, the trip was relatively uneventful. At one of the checkpoints, though, we were stuck for about 45 minutes. The reason, we found out, was that the bus was “overloaded” (code for a tip) and that the driver didn’t have a driver’s licence. Whether this meant that he didn’t have one at all, or just that he’d forgotten it at home (!), we were never told. He was quite the surly driver to begin with, and his mood didn’t improve after this, since he no doubt had to hand over quite a large tip. Driving roughshod over bumps etc., we stopped at a place called Bafoussam, where we dropped off some passengers and took on a few more (an hour) and then went on to Dschang, only about 50 km from Bafoussam. By the time we left Bafoussam, it was 6:30 p.m. and as the road leading out of that town is in an awful state, it took about 30 minutes to cover about three kilometres (traffic, potholes, pedestrians, etc.). Once out of town, the road was in excellent shape, but, of course, we had to stop along the way to let passengers off at the various palm trees that they indicated. We finally made it to Dschang at about 8 p.m.

Once off the bus, Serge and I looked for a taxi – no such thing around! There was only one mototaximan, who kindly told us that there were no taxis at all in Dschang, so where would we like to go? (Indeed, no taxis were seen during our stay.) And as far as we could see, there was just the one mototaximan (he certainly wasn’t going to call a friend!)… so, Serge and I climbed aboard the motorbike – I am being kind, as it was a moped, really - and the driver balanced my small suitcase on the handlebar, Serge carried his bag on his lap (the bag wasn’t very big) and sat just behind the driver while I sat on the luggage rack (hoping that the trip to the Centre wouldn’t be very long), carrying my little bag and, of course, my umbrella, which accompanies me everywhere to ensure that it doesn’t rain (superstitious, I know, but it works!).

It was quite a chilly ride, but it didn’t take too long to get to the Centre climatique, which was all in darkness, except for one brave little light in the reception area! And no one in the reception area. We finally raised someone, only to discover that the room that I’d booked had been rented out to someone else (“You should have confirmed today, sir) but I was finally shown to a room in one of the bungalows. The mototaximan hung around while Serge tried to raise his cousin on the phone, with no response – in the sense that the phone didn’t ring at all at the other end. He was a bit put out, to put it mildly, since he’d told the cousin that he was arriving that day. There was not much choice, so Serge ended up spending the night on the couch in the living room. Before that, we needed to eat, but as there were no restaurants open, and the hotel was shutting down for the evening (power off at 9 p.m.), we clambered back onto the moped, found a little store where we bought some very old cookies (but no maggots, you’ll be glad to know) and some water and returned to the hotel.

Yes, living room. The rooms at the Centre climatique are all housed within bungalows. Really rather nice; each bungalow has a living room and two bedrooms, with a shared toilet (but with separate showers). The living room is appointed rather basically, but has a nice fireplace (but no wood to burn), and the bedroom was ok, although I found the bed slightly lumpy. Since I’d only booked one room, we didn’t have access to the second bedroom, but did have the use of the living room. I was quite exhausted by the day’s trip, and by 9:30, I was in bed, and Serge was snoring on the couch (it didn’t look very comfortable, I must admit!). And yes, it was cold… in fact (gasp! As our son Jonathon would say), I used the blanket both nights I was there, the only time in Cameroun that I have used a blanket (except when I had my bout of malaria in April 2008). No mosquitoes, no doubt due to the deep cold (!) which is just as well since there were no mosquito nettings anywhere!

The next day dawned bright and clear, with a bit of nip in the air – it was probably 14 degrees… Serge managed to call his cousin, who explained that he’d turned off his phone in order to charge it the night before, figuring that as he hadn’t heard from Serge, the latter wasn’t coming until Saturday. Anyway… Serge invited the cousin to join us for breakfast and the said cousin, Max, showed up about an hour later with his girl-friend. What can one do… at least Max hadn’t brought the whole dormitory with him! So we breakfasted in a leisurely fashion and were done at about 11 a.m. I decided that I ought to visit the town a bit (such a great tourist I am), so we called up the mototaximan from the night before, and he showed up quite promptly. Serge went off with his cousin and the girl-friend to do his thing.

I tootled off on the motorbike, a bit nervously, I must admit, as I don’t like the machines at all and have witnessed too many accidents involving them. No helmets, of course! By this time, the sun was quite warm (although many people were wearing sweaters), and I told the driver that I just wanted to go around town to get a sense of things. So we did just that. He drove carefully, for which I was truly grateful, pointing out the various landmarks. “Here is the Texaco station. And this is the Town Hall, and here is the Hotel Miramar, and this is Texaco 2. It’s called Texaco 2 because it’s the second Texaco station.” Most amusing! He took me up to the hospital, which was quite the complex, run by the Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul (I refused to visit the inside), and we took a run up to the University, having negotiated our way in through the barrier (the watchman is my friend [500 FCFA, about $1.25]).

Quite the stunning little place, Dschang, nestled in a valley and really rather pleasant. The driver offered to take me to a place called Cliff of something or other, but said that it would take about 30 minutes to get there, so I refused, saying that I’d do so on my next trip. Finally, I was back at the hotel at about 1 p.m. And no, there is nothing to do in Dschang… The cousin had pointed out that it was a University town, so no one had much money, so there isn’t even “normal night life”. A very serious place, he said, one comes here to study and at 7:30 p.m., everything shuts down.

Given that it was snooze time, that’s what I did, to be awakened by Serge, at about 3 p.m., wondering if he could use the pool at the hotel. I was quite surprised to see him, but he explained that his cousin had some studying to do, so he, Serge, was at a loose end. As I’d planned to use the pool myself, off we went. Loud music greeted us, and there was a host of young things enjoying the only pool in town. Quite a large pool, I must say, and I had a good swim and then spent time people watching from the shade (the scalp had had a good innings during the tour of the town, and no, I hadn’t brought my hat…). I must say it was quite fun to watch everyone jiggling away to the music, whether in the water on or on the side of the pool. An awful lot of male show-offs; one chappie climbed up to the diving platform and gave quite the dancing performance before finally diving into the pool. Quite proud of his body, he was, and a good dancer. I don’t know how he did it, but I swear that his very muscular breasts moved each to a different rhythm! There was one young lady, clad in a swim suit with a skirt, who had some pretty nifty movements involving swinging around poles and shimmying into the water. This took care of the rest of the afternoon and was much more entertaining than television, to my mind, anyway!

At about 6, I asked Serge what his plans were for the evening; he suggested that we invite his cousin and girl-friend for supper (very nice couple, I must confess), and I really couldn’t refuse – well, I suppose I could have, but anyway, I didn’t. I sort of felt sorry for Serge, stuck with an older person for company all afternoon, when he probably thought that he’d be having a whale of a time with cousin and friends thereof. Of course, no one refuses an invitation to a meal, so the couple showed up at about seven, and we had a pleasant meal sitting on the veranda of the restaurant. Quite good food. It came out during the course of the meal that there was no room for Serge to stay at his cousin’s (the couple rent a small room), so the poor boy (man, I suppose, he is 23) spent the night on the couch again.

The next morning, after breakfast (meaning 10 a.m., no sense in arriving too soon at the bus station!), we started back. At the bus station, the bus was more than half full, which was encouraging, as it meant that we started at 11:30. Same kind of palaver (i.e., starting off, stopping, checking tickets, returning change) and we finally left at 12:30. Patience, patience. No sooner were we clear of Dschang, than a smartly dressed young man got up in his seat, and started off on a sermon in English, with a colleague providing instant interpretation in French. There was a sort of stunned silence at first, but when it became apparent that the haranguing was going to continue all the way to Bafoussam, people started shouting out for him to stop, and finally the conductor managed to shush him up. The whole thing created a mini dispute, as some passengers thought that there was nothing wrong listening to the word of God, no matter who was orating, but most saying that they hadn’t paid to be a captive congregation and that if they’d wanted to be in church, that’s where they’d be!

The bus was totally full, and Serge and I had managed to get two seats together in the very last row, not very comfortable as we were sitting just over the wheels, our heads leaping for the ceiling every time we went over a bump. We made good time to Bafoussam, as no one was getting off on the way there, had a very brief stop in that town, and then hared off at Formula 1 speed toward Yaoundé, which we reached at about 5 p.m. Not without more excitement, since the bus stopped, every so often, to allow people to purchase items at various markets (mangoes, pineapple, rat meat, etc.). To my left, a “traditionally-built” African lady on the other side who bought stuff at every stop, which meant that I was soon surrounded by mangoes, pineapple, some kind of spinach and a couple of bags of rat meat in a basket placed on my knees. Thank goodness the trip was fairly quick!

Njikam had called me in the morning, when we were still in Dschang, to announce the birth of his daughter, and had said that he would meet us at the station, as long as we gave him about 30 minutes’ warning, which I did. We had to wait for him for a little while, since he’d been quite surprised that the bus was so early, and, I guess, had to go and get his taxi out of the compound where he keeps it. Anyway, he was very cheerful, of course! We dropped Serge off and I was home by shortly after 6.

Exhausting weekend, but fun, I guess! This is a good time to take a break, my friends, before I embark on the recital of the next trip, which took place just six weeks ago.

***

One of my colleagues, Jean-Vincent, the math and physics teacher at the Centre, had suggested, back in June, that I visit his village and admire the family farm. Unfortunately, it had not been possible to make that trip before I left on vacation at the end of July, so we arranged that we should do so on the second weekend after my return. For this trip, I booked Simplice (the other taxi driver), since I was sure it would give him a thrill to go “au village”, and, to be honest, I didn’t particularly wish to travel by bus and bush-taxi. It was decided that we should leave at 1 p.m. on Friday afternoon and that we would return on the Sunday afternoon.

Jean-Vincent duly showed up at the house at the appointed time and deposited his baggage. He asked to be picked up at the top of the hill so that indiscrete eyes at the Centre wouldn’t notice us going off together (one has to pass in front of the Centre to leave town, and one has to be careful of jealous eyes). So I waited for half an hour, to give time for JV to reach the appointed spot, and Simplice and I then went off. With Jean-Vincent, to my surprise, were two cousins: Stéphanie, invited so that she could help “la maman” with entertaining us (me, I guess) and Jean-Pierre (I think – they called him J.-P. all the time), whose family lives in the village next to Jean-Vincent’s. Luggage galore, things on laps, etc., and of course, as the main guest (and white!), I was expected to show up bearing gifts of food (two 10 kg sacks of rice, a huge box of mackerel, masses of wine [cardboard box type]). It was a pleasant drive, as it wasn’t raining, and Simplice’s car didn’t fall to bits – it’s a bit of a wreck, to put it mildly, but it goes. The road was paved most of the way, except for the penultimate 50 km which were crushed gravel and passable and the last 3 km a wide dirt path in the best tradition of wide paths. I don’t know how Simplice got the loaded car through the last bit, but he managed it!

We didn’t arrive until about 7 p.m., so it was dark, and we men sat around outside as the ladies hurriedly prepared a meal. No electricity, only lanterns, so it was hard to make out faces as people from the surrounding houses trotted up to be introduced. Chicken for supper (including gizzards, heart, other entrails and the claws) that night accompanied by fried plantains. I was offered palm wine, which I refused, but did take a bit of the distilled liquor made from it, figuring that it was pretty safe. I’d brought a whole lot of bottled water, of course. There being no running water (if you discount the river about 300 metres away), palm wine is the drink of choice morning, noon and night, as I discovered. Finally, at about 11 o’clock, I was shown to my room – what a surprise! I had expected to share a room with all the men, but no, I was given Jean-Vincent’s mother’s room, that she shares with her husband, Édouard, (who is not Jean-Vincent’s father). So I ended up in a double bed, properly made up and with a mosquito net. It was a tad uncomfortable, as I had to sleep diagonally in order to settle over the slats poking through the very thin foam mattress. Nevertheless, I slept well, not even waking up in the night to use the chamber pot that had been thoughtfully provided for me.

Saturday dawned quite bright, and we were all up by 6:30 a.m. Édouard, Jean-Vincent’s step-father, greeted me with a broad smile and announced that we’d be visiting the farm at some point after breakfast. Very nice chappie, I must say, full of agricultural ideas and good management skills (this all came out over the course of the day, of course). He used to work at the Cameroon Breweries until a few years ago when, during an economic downturn, he lost his job and decided to come back to the village and become self-sufficient. He has no children of his own (rare in a man his age, he must be close to my age) and he and Jean-Vincent’s mother, Agnes, haven’t had children together either.

While waiting for breakfast, a couple of huge hares were brought in, held by the ears. They were huge and had been trapped during the night. It was announced that we’d be eating some of that meat at some point during the day. There was also a constant stream of visitors, shaking hands and then making their way to the kitchen to get their share of the stuff that I’d brought. Some went away with a couple of mackerel, others with a litre of wine. I guess it’s expected to share the manna from heaven. I sort of felt sorry for my hosts, but I suppose they have no choice in the matter, tradition dictating that one shares the bounty received!

Breakfast was more fried plantain served with beef sauce, with very (un)chewable lumps of meat, and we duly set off, at about 9 a.m., to visit the farm, I in my new Wellington boots (green, yes), bought for the occasion, as Jean-Vincent had told me that there would be a lot of mud – he was right! Anyway, we trotted round various fields being shown where they collect palm wine – basically, it’s palm tree sap, and you have to cut the tree down, lop off the top, and then slice the trunk at a certain spot, and put a bucket under the trunk to catch the drips. It seems that you can get two or three litres a day, as long as you carry on sawing off a bit of the trunk every day. Only a certain section of the trunk produces the liquid. A bit like tapping for maple syrup, but it seems a shame to have to cut down the tree, although it would no doubt be difficult to tap a tree 30 feet up in the air. The palm wine is drunk as is – i.e., no treatment at all, and, of course, I didn’t have any of it at all. Watching Jean-Vincent and the others picking out flies, ants and various other insects from the bucket wasn’t too inspiring, to but it mildly! Fortunately, Jean-Vincent was able to confirm that I didn’t drink much alcohol, so the moment passed without any cultural incident. And yes, the sap comes out mildly alcoholic, and Édouard, J.-P. and Jean-Vincent, quaffed quite a lot of the stuff as we made our rounds; there were wine-producing palm trees placed in many strategic places.

Having admired the palm trees, the millet, the tobacco plant, the coffee bushes (Édouard no longer runs a coffee farm as the prices have dropped too much) and various other things growing, we went back to the house for a short break before heading off to the next field. I have to say that I’m in full admiration of Édouard’s work habits, since he looks after all this mostly on his own; he does hire ladies from time to time to help out (working in the fields is considered women’s work), but basically it’s all his own, back-breaking work, a rare thing for a man to do.

By-passing the latrines (his and hers), we started trekking through dense forest – it really felt like the jungle (I suppose it is, really!), with Édouard and Jean-Vincent in the front hacking away at various impediments on the way, and J.-P behind me, in case I slipped on something. We clambered down a very muddy embankment, and then trudged carefully along a river bed (thank goodness for the boots!), squelched through mud and finally arrived at field number 2. My companions went barefoot or simply wet and muddied their footwear. I caught a couple of glances at my boots, no doubt expressing hope that I’d leave them behind on my departure (but no, this didn’t happen!).

The field we finally got to is the maize, peanut and sugar cane field, so I duly admired all the shoots etc., and we had a little sit-down to talk about all this agricultural stuff (yes, they’re hoping that I’ll invest in the undertaking, and no, I wasn’t surprised!) and then we finally made our way back to the house for a late lunch. We had hare – very nice, too, along with (you guessed it!) fried plantains. I was starting to wonder if the rice I’d brought was any use…

After lunch, it was suggested that we skip Field number 3 (phew! banana and plantain grove) as we had to go to J.-P.’s village, about 4 km away, so we piled into Simplice’s car and slowly drove over the ruts to get there. Although there is no telephone coverage in the area (and no power and no running water), we were expected because the bush telegraph had announced our arrival the previous evening, and the invitation had been issued the same way. Piles of people to meet and greet, and we spent a couple of hours there before heading back to Édouard and Agnes’ abode, leaving J.-P. behind with his family for the rest of the afternoon. Stéphanie had stayed behind to wash dishes and start preparing supper – poor woman, I don’t think she left the kitchen all weekend – and now an evening meal was being prepared as the men from the other family (brothers of Agnes) were coming over to say hello even though we had just spent time with them.

The gentlemen duly showed up, and we sat under the spreading palm tree, they quaffing palm wine (sometimes not bothering to remove the insects) or some of the red wine that I had brought. My, these people drink in huge quantities! Supper was duly served at about 8 p.m., consisting this time of varan, a sort of iguana (the dictionary states that it’s a varanus lizard), I think, and – yes, fried plantains, mashed plantains and boiled plantains. The varan was very tasty, much nicer than crocodile. Finally, people left, and I went to bed, quite exhausted by all this socializing!

The next morning, I slept in until 7 a.m.! We had planned to leave at 8:30. However, certain things had to be placed in the car before departure: three huge bunches of plantain, a huge bunch of bananas, a large bag of peanuts, a fairly large bag of corn, loads of sugar cane, and the remains of the hare, some of all this for me, most for J.-P., Stéphanie and Jean-Vincent. Of course, prior to this, the plantains had to be cut down, the bananas too, so Édouard and Jean-Vincent were trotting around various fields harvesting all the loot. At one point, Édouard, who had gone around to collect sugar cane, came back with a broad grin, holding a varan by the tail. The poor animal had been caught in one of the traps set all over the fields to discourage predators, so having slit its neck, and drained it of blood, it too went into the car for the trip home. At 11 a.m., almost on time by Cameroonian standards, we left Édouard and Agnes’ place and went to pick up J.-P. at his family’s place, where we had to sit around for a bit. They were preparing a meal for us, but Jean-Vincent managed to persuade them to give it to us in the form of a picnic, so we were able to leave at about 12:30. Lunch, eaten later, was a stew of guinea-pigs, very tasty.

By the time we left, it was pouring with rain, a deluge, but fortunately, we didn’t have to negotiate the mud track as it was all packed gravel back to the main road and good asphalt all the way back to Yaoundé. It rained most of the time. We were stopped only once by police (it cost Simplice 3000 francs, refunded by me, of course [$7.50]), who, we figured, were needing beer money. They claimed that we shouldn’t be carrying the varan in our boot, since it looked like we had been poaching in the president’s backyard (his village is not far away and heavily patrolled) or some such story. Anyway, the varan then made its way to the floor of the back of the car, in case there were other stops on the way.

As they say here, we started arriving in Yaoundé at about 5:00, and dropped J.-P. off at his place (obligatory short visit to his place, he’s a tailor, which is good to know), then dropped Stéphanie’s luggage off at her place (near Simplice’s place as it turns out, and the two of them hit it off very well) along with the varan that she had agreed to prepare for everyone. Stéphanie then came along with us to accompany Jean-Vincent home, because she had a pile of “medicine from the village” to deliver and share with Jean-Vincent’s sister. Jean-Vincent, who lives in a house not far from me, insisted that Simplice would be able to drive him home, although, with the rain, I wasn’t sure that this would work, since the road to Jean-Vincent’s house is pretty much a mud-track. We did fairly well until we were half-way up a hill, slipping and sliding all over the place, and were faced with deep ruts into which the car slipped. Poor Simplice – he didn’t know whether to curse Jean-Vincent or not, because he had been sure it wouldn’t be passable (he’s taken Jean-Vincent home before). Anyway, there we were, stuck! So, we got out of the car, and, fortunately, a number of strong men showed up and lifted the taxi out of the ruts, so Simplice was able to back down. We emptied the car and left Jean-Vincent and Stéphanie to sort out how to get all these plantains, sugar canes, bananas, peanuts etc to his house, and Simplice drove me home. I have to say that I found all this quite exhausting, Simplice’s car not being the most comfortable of vehicles. The bum was very sore.

Anyway, it was about 6:30 when I got back home, unloading my share of gifts from the village: a whole bunch of plantains and the same of bananas, given to André and family. I also had a whole hare and I asked André to lop off two or three bits with meat on them, and gave them the rest, to their delight – although they were a bit sad that the entrails were not present (these had been eaten at the village). The next evening, Jean-Vincent and Stéphanie showed up, bringing me my share of the varan that had travelled back with us. All this meat is now in the freezer awaiting an opportune moment for consumption.

I shall leave you in peace now, my friends. Work life is quite busy as the school year has started, and routine has settled in. There is news on the André home front (sentinels, I tell you!), but that will have to wait for another burst of energy on my part, especially as this posting is already quite long.

Cheers!

David